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Forget U.S. Gen. David Petraeus. In Canada, anyway, the oil industry was the big media star this past week.

Sure, it’s a lot more fun to read about steamy, sexual trysts, but it’s not as important. In the past six days, there have been five stories in the Calgary Herald about Petraeus, the former CIA director who resigned for having an illicit affair with his much younger biographer. In the same time frame, there have been 25 stories or columns mentioning the oilsands.

Perhaps the most sobering (though not unsexy) bit of news came from the International Energy Agency (IEA), which predicted that by 2017, the U.S. will become the world’s top oil producer. The think-tank went on to forecast that by 2030, the United States could become energy independent and even a net exporter of oil, thanks to technological advances that have unlocked enormous oil reserves from shale rock formations.

There’s nothing like a fracking drill to the head to focus one’s attention. After all, the U.S. is Canada’s largest customer of our oil, buying 2.4 million barrels a day.

If our largest customer stops buying the stuff that fuels Canada’s economy, that can’t be good.

The obvious answer to the dilemma, of course, is Canada must find other markets for our oil, but that simple concept is proving difficult, as it’s become pretty clear that the Northern Gateway pipeline to Kitimat from Alberta could be as unlikely as Gen. Petraeus and his long-suffering wife of 38 years, Holly, sharing the same bed or even a friendly word in the foreseeable future.

On Wednesday, the day after the IEA report, another significant document was released, this time by Deloitte. “The oilsands are going to be the economic engine for the country for the foreseeable future, for the next 25 to 30 years,” said Marc Joiner, a partner at the financial advisory firm in Toronto.

The 30-page report, entitled Gaining Ground in the Sands 2013, may not be as much of a romping read as the Petraeus scandal, but compared with most reports about the oil industry, it’s eminently readable.

First, it lays out some of the salient facts that it urges all Canadians to better understand, including that the oilsands will generate a whopping $2.1 trillion in economic benefits over the next 25 years, some 905,000 jobs across Canada by 2035, and that by 2021, the oilsands will have ramped up production from 1.7 million barrels per day to 3.7 million.

But if the U.S. will be buying less or even none of our oil, what’s a poor, old landlocked province to do?

Perhaps it’s time for Enbridge to give up the dream of shipping diluted bitumen to Kitimat and instead decide to ship synthetic crude, which might appease some environmentalists.

“When publishing magnate David Black proposed in mid-August 2012 a $13-billion refinery for northern B.C. to process the crude oil that would flow through an eventual Northern Gateway pipeline, he took the industry by storm,” says the Deloitte report.

“Black’s proposal should not be dismissed outright,” adds the report, and not just because of the jobs that would be generated. “There is a question of whether it actually makes sense to ship diluted bitumen from Alberta rather than synthetic crude oil, largely because of the extra pipelines, ships and loading facilities required to return the diluent to Alberta.”

The report states that $3 billion of pipeline capital would be wasted to carry the raw bitumen and the diluent.

Research also suggests that “the construction of four pump stations could be totally eliminated and the number of 5,570 HP pumps could be reduced to nine from 44. The number of large storage tanks at Kitimat could be reduced to seven from 14.”

Would that help make the pipeline more appetizing to British Columbians? The upgrading and refining jobs would certainly help give B.C. the “fair share” of the riches it seeks.

Meanwhile, NDP leader Thomas Mulcair was in Calgary on Tuesday to stump for his party’s candidate, Dan Meades, in the upcoming Calgary Centre byelection and he used the opportunity to talk again about the need for more upgrading and refining capacity to be built in Canada — particularly Central Canada — to keep the jobs in the country and to stop the need to import foreign oil into Central and Eastern Canada.

That’s precisely what Enbridge is trying to do by gaining approval to reverse the east-to-west flow of an existing pipeline.

Quebec’s environment minister, Daniel Breton, is not enthusiastic. While Quebec loves the oil money that flows into its coffers annually — to the tune of $8 billion in net federal transfers — it’s not so keen on the “dirty” oil that generates that wealth. It prefers bloody Saudi oil that funds terrorism around the world.

Quoting the Asia Pacific Foundation, the Deloitte report says that the $22 billion in government revenues generated from the energy industry annually “‘provide indispensable support for the social programs Canadians value.’”

“Thus, a key question for opponents: How exactly would you make up the loss?”

OK, so it’s no bodice ripper, but wouldn’t you love to see Breton try to answer that?

Considering that the NDP wouldn’t be official Opposition were it not for its mostly Quebec supporters, perhaps Mulcair can be put to work for the benefit of the entire country and advocate for reversing that pipeline. It’s a start. Then maybe he will support the idea of a northern B.C. upgrader being built.

Stay tuned. Much is riding on the strange bedfellows who could form liaisons to help the oilpatch — Canada’s very own media darling.

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Opinion: Oilsands are stealing the headlines in Canada while the U.S. is obsessed with Petraeus

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